Reserves attendances & their importance to club finances.

At Leicester Tigers our reserve fixtures are hugely popular and have been pulling in decent numbers. I remember being at one game (a few years ago) where it was announced that we had broken the world record for attendance as we had gotten in the region of 13,000 fans turn out for an A game. It became a regular feature with attendances around the 10,000 mark. The atmosphere was brilliant, a huge amount of fun for everyone, and the Tigers players must have loved having that back them up on the night.

This was hugely popular (as I said before) because it was free to get in. The club made some money on beer & food and everyone was happy. It was a great opportunity to take down people for their first experience of Tigers and my kids always used to drag along all their mates too. It was a good midweek evening out.

The Tigers v South Africa was simply amazing!

The club then started to take notice of the revenue opportunity and began to ask for a £5 on the gates admission, which to be fair is not too expensive (concessions for kids etc.) but it is only a reserves fixture... However, I have noticed a marked drop off in attendances since this and I think this season we have done a good job of filling the crumbie but that's about it.

I'm trying to find some facts & figures on attendances for reserves fixtures (to see if my memory matches reality) and not having much luck. Can anyone fill in the numbers?

I guess the question I want to ask here is...

Is it better to have big crowds in for free or smaller crowds who pay? What is better for the future of the club?

Interesting question....

Assuming 10 000 for free, with an average spend in the ground of £5 per head, the profit margin may be say 20% (makes the numbers easier), making £10 000. If you have say 3000 in the stadium paying £5 to get in then you have £15 000 straight off the bat. There is no profit margin really in this case - the game was happening anyway.

So I reckon on that "back of an envelope" calculation you can say that the £5 in is probably better financially. The thing is, it doesn't account for how many may then go to see the first team. In Leicester's case the ground is full most match days anyway, so it probably makes little difference.

The board at Leicester are pretty good at making money so I would be surprised if this new scheme makes less than the free entry. If it does then I'm sure they would change back.

The problem is I think the attendance has dropped since the club have started to ask for cash for admission. Which is a shame as I've watched some good games there (currently my Mondays aren't open so I've not been going anyway). I think they'd have got away with it more if they'd gradually increased the prices. A quid a head plus an open club store to go with the food and beverage options should make it worth while and guarentee a decent crowd to cheer what is normally half squad players and half academy boys on.

Then again screamming is right the board know how to make money so it's likely they've done the sums more carefully than we have.

I think getting the big numbers down there made for a better atmosphere and made it more fun. Probably this would have been better for the club long term in developing new fans and club members, but that's just my point of view I guess.

I agree with you MT, plus it's a good way of getting the players used to playing in front of proper crowds. Removes some of the intimidation for when they make their debuts.